Unicode and Windows XP

1. Cathy Wissink Program Manager, Globalization Windows Division Microsoft Unicode and Windows XP Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

2. Agenda • Brief Overview of Approach and History • International Functionality on Windows • What’s Different in Windows XP? • What’s Beyond Windows XP? • Conclusions and Resources Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

3. Approach and History Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

4. Our Approach • Include full Unicode support from onset • Leverage Uniscribe, OpenType, NLS • Migrate towards a single worldwide source (reached in Windows 2000) • Develop and refine Multilingual User Interface functionality • Continue to add new international functionality (Windows Text Services Framework, etc.) Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

5. Our History (or: Well, how did we get here?) • Genesis of NT (1991): Go with Unicode! • NT 4.0 (1996): many Unicode components, but still strong code page dependency • NT 5.0, renamed Windows 2000 (2000): single worldwide source • Windows XP (2001): merge of the NT international functionality with the consumer experience of Windows 95/98/ME Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

6. International Functionality • NLS (National Language Support), including the locale model • Uniscribe (including OpenType) • Windows Text Services Framework • MUI (Multilingual User Interface Pack for Windows) Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

7. National Language Support NLS provides the information that supports culturally appropriate behavior: • Sorting and casing • Formatting (dates, times, currency, numbers) • Conversions (normalization, character encodings) • Other (calendars, native digits) Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

8. National Language Support, cont. NLS data for a particular culture grouped into a locale (generally, a country + language combination). There were different types of “locales” on Windows 2000, which have been renamed for Windows XP (as seen in Regional Options)… Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

9. Windows 2000 “User locale” (cultural conventions and data) “Input locale” (keyboards and IMEs) “System locale” (code page conversions) Windows XP “Standards and Formats” “Input Language and Method” “Language for non-Unicode Programs” Locales Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

10. Uniscribe The technology used to handle the layout, rendering and editing of complex scripts Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

11. Examples of Complex Scripts Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

12. Some of the text issues handled by Uniscribe • Word breaking (Thai) • Bi-directional text (Hebrew, Arabic) • Multiple diacritics on a base character (Vietnamese) • Contextual shaping (Indic, Arabic) • Illegal character combination filtering (Thai) Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

13. Windows Text Services Framework • New to Windows XP! • Extends input methods to include natural language recognition (speech, handwriting) Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

14. MUI • Short for Multilingual User Interface • MUI changes language of the system’s menus, dialogs and Help files into one of 33 different languages • Available as add-on pack for Windows XP Professional (Multilingual User Interface Pack) Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

15. MUI, continued • MUI built by copying resources from localized versions • Testers check for same issues as for localized versions • Resource loader checks user’s UI language setting to load the appropriate resources Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

16. MUI vs. other international functionality • MUI • changes the user’s UI language • only available as an add-on pack to the English version of Windows XP • All other international functionality • impacts language content and formatting • available on all versions of Windows XP Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

17. What’s new for Windows XP? Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

18. NLS • 9 new locales + invariant locale; 136 locales total • Punjabi, Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada, Kyrgyz, Mongolian (Cyrillic), Galician, Divehi and Syriac • Old Hangul sorting • GB18030 encoding • New location (“Geo”) APIs • Overhaul of Regional Options Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

19. Regional Options Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

20. Uniscribe • New script support • Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Telugu, Divehi, and Syriac • Improvements to resolution, layout and formatting made possible by GDI+ • Default system installation of Uniscribe • Improved font fallback support Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

21. MUI Closer parity to 100% localized builds: • UI strings removed from registry and kernel • Improvements to Shell, Desktop and Console resource handling • Help files enabled for UI language switching Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

22. If you take away just one thing from this talk… As a result of pervasive Unicode support built into Windows XP, international functionality (except MUI) is available on all versions This includes: • Localized versions • MUI version • Base (English) version Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

23. What’s beyond Windows XP? Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

24. Looking to the future… • New research for languages and cultures • Marry MUI and localization? • Eventual goal: “English is just another language” Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)

25. Resources • Windows Global Development Website http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/ mailto:gdhelp@microsoft.com (Global Dev Help) mailto:drintl@microsoft.com (Dr. International) • Microsoft Typography Website (OpenType, Uniscribe) http://www.microsoft.com/typography Unicode and Windows XP, IUC 19 (San Jose)